this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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If documentation is written in a readable and confluent way, RTFM isn't such a big deal. The issue comes with overly draconian and non-confluent documentation.
I thought you wrote confluence and wanted to grab my pitchfork.
rivers
Petrichor
Looking at you, Nix documentation
Day 564: I have become lost in the forums amidst flake debate threads. Do not search for me, it is already too late.
You got a nice guttural laugh outta me for that one.
Confluent?
Flowing/coming together.
I think what they are referring to are docs where pieces are explained individually, but not in a consistent or cohesive way, obfuscating use.
In my experience, all the Linux documentation I have read has been written for peers of Linux developers, who are familiar with technical terminology and several concepts and steps are left out and implied rather than explained.
It’s a way for developers to ensure that Linux never receives adoption past other developers. Literary equivalent of pulling the ladder up.
Said it before and I'll say it again: had to manually install some software to make Steam tinker launch work, and the instructions for installing it were to download and prepare the GitHub folder, then "do the usual and move the completed file to ..."
Ive used git in the past and it still took me multiple minutes to figure out they meant the "make && build" command. Why was that so hard to fucking write??
Highly specialized people live in bubbles and assume that everyone else lives in their same bubble and so if someone else doesn’t understand, they aren’t worth communicating with.
XKCD 2501, basically.
Thank you for this. It’s beautiful.
I mean, it's technical documentation. There's a limit to how exciting it can be. lol.
There is a way with chmod in bash to change files and folders with files getting no execute bit and folder do (rwX instead of rwx). It's in the man pages but good luck finding it via Google. Stackoverflow just suggests using find over and over again.
That did it for me.
You're absolutely right